According to The Hollywood Reporter casting for The Hobbit movie is due to begin this week in London and LA, and Peter Jackson says they are throwing a large net and casting for every role apart from the one of Gandalf which is already spoken for.
“What we’ve done over the years is discover a lot of interesting actors, like Orlando Bloom (in ‘Rings’), Kate Winslet (in ‘Heavenly Creatures’), Saoirse Ronan (in ‘The Lovely Bones’). So if you start looking and auditioning seriously, it’s amazing what incredible talent you’ll find out there.”
“Apart from Ian McKellen, who we obviously want to return as Gandalf, we are not really offering any roles to anybody until we’ve done a casting sweep,” said Peter Jackson.